Warrantless DNA test was OK

Filed 6d ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Five Card Shuffle

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: JJonahJackalope · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The Colorado Appeals Court ruled that police did not need a warrant to seize and DNA-test evidence pulled from a suspect's trash, upholding a 2022 conviction for a 1981 homicide.

A divided panel found that once property is lawfully abandoned, the Fourth Amendment's protections evaporate along with the owner's claim to it. The decades-long gap between crime and conviction underscores how far genetic forensics has outpaced the law it now interprets.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Abandon your trash, abandon your rights, apparently — a tidy legal syllogism that took a divided panel to reach. The dissent presumably exists, but the ruling stands as one more reminder that curb service comes with fine print nobody reads.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Five Card Shuffle · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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